It’s seems counterintuitive, to say the least. Indeed, it seems quite mad. And yet we now have all the evidence we need to point to a de facto Israeli alliance with Al Qaeda. The bombing of Damascus suburbs by Israeli jets – purportedly in order to prevent the Syrians from supplying Hezbollah with long range missiles – at precisely the moment when the Syrian “rebels” are demanding Western intervention on their behalf highlights one of the most bizarre alliances in history.

Bizarre, yes, but inexplicable? Not at all.

The Syrian government is claiming the Israelis “coordinated” their attack with the rebels, but this seems problematic – and is largely irrelevant. Yes, a rebel spokesman “blessed” the Israeli strike, but I rather doubt there’s ongoing communication between the rebel leadership and Tel Aviv. It’s simply not necessary: after all, their goals in the region are complementary, if not identical. The Sunni extremists who comprise Al Qaeda have been in the front lines in the battle against Bashar al-Assad, and are also bitterly hostile to the mullahs of Tehran, whom they consider heretics: Israel, for its part, has launched its own holy war against Iran for quite different reasons, and is eager to take out Assad: regardless of motives their goals do coincide. Both want chaos in Syria – the Israelis, in order to eliminate a longstanding thorn in their side, and the jihadists because they thrive in failed states, like Lebanon.

Why would the Israelis aid a “rebel” army made up almost exclusively of hardened jihadists who supposedly hate Israel and want to see its non-Arab inhabitants driven into the sea? For the same reason they initiallynurtured Hamas – because they believe it serves their long range purposes. The reason the Israelis granted official legal status to the group that eventually morphed into one of the Jewish state’s most implacable enemies was simple: to divide the Palestinian resistance, and therefore weaken it. At the time, Fatah, the largest component of the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization, was the most effective opposition to the Israeli occupation. The Israelis thought aiding an Islamist competitor would achieve certain desired ends: the decline of the PLO’s influence, the alienation of Arab governments from the Palestinian cause, and the marginalization of that cause in Western eyes. All three goals have since been achieved.

The Israelis are assisting the Syrian jihadists for similar reasons: because it fits in rather neatly with their long-range goals. For a look at those goals, all you have to do is peruse a 1996 document prepared for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by leading neoconservatives, proposing a radical new Israeli “defense” strategy. Reading “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” is like reading a timeline of events in the Middle East for the past ten years. As I wrote in October of 2003, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War – a day when Israel bombed alleged “terrorist camps” in Syria:

“‘Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria’s regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq.'”

Well, we didn’t get the Hashemites – but Maliki will do. Or, rather, near complete chaos will suffice, as the religious civil war wracking the Muslim world takes another potential enemy out of contention. Now that Iraq lies bleeding by the wayside, King Bibi is speeding down that “Clean Break” highway, eager to turn two more regional rivals into roadkill.

Israel’s role in this is key. It isn’t just Israeli jets providing air cover for the jihadists in Syria: the Israel lobby has been going full tilt in a push to drag the US into the conflict. And they don’t care how they do it. The other day, in a debate on intervention in Syria on NPR, a representative of WINEP, the “educational” arm of AIPAC, accused anti-interventionist Joshua Landis of “dual loyalty” because his wife is an Alawite! Of course, the Israel lobby isn’t guilty of dual loyalty – their one and only loyalty is to the state of Israel, nothing dual about it.

The “chemical weapons” hoax topped the long list of similar scams set up by the Syrian rebels and their Western supporters in its brazen effrontery: not since the “Niger uranium” papers have we seen such a downright sloppy scheme to lie us into war. Samples taken from rebel sources tested positive for sarin – and the administration was supposed to accept that at face value? Back to the drawing board, and the same old question: how do we drag a reluctant US President into an open military confrontation with Iran?

Only a few years ago it would’ve been hard to believe the Americans weren’t clued in beforehand that Israeli jets would soon be pounding Damascus. However, given the relations between this administration and the Netanyahu government, one is hardly shocked to learn it came as a surprise. The War Party is playing its trump card – and we’ll see if the President has anything up his sleeve to beat it.

In an effort to stay out of a major mess that could get far messier, the White House is up against not only the Israel lobby, the McCain brigade, and powerful members of his own party, he’s also swimming against the foreign policy current that dominated the previous administration – and also his own.

It was during the Bush regime’s effort to save face by proclaiming “victory” at the end of the Iraq “surge” that the US decided to play the Sunni card and forge a regional coalition to block Iranian dominance of the region. That this turn ended up with the US and Al Qaeda on the same side in the Syrian trenches is hardly surprising – or unprecedented. Bin Laden’s legions fought in the Kosovo war on the side of their Kosovar Muslim brothers and NATO: many present day jihadists are veterans of that conflict, just as they are veterans of Afghanistan, Libya, and Chechnya – all regions where the jihadists and the Americans are de facto allies. In the Balkans, we used them to block Russian influence in Europe: in Syria, we are using them to run interference with the Iranians. In resisting – at least publicly – the call to intervene more visibly, this President is contravening the trajectory of American policy in the region – and the US ship of state, an enormous and therefore unwieldy vessel, is not so easily turned around. It has a momentum all its own.

The White House has been besieged by the “humanitarian” interventionist crowd – by Democrats, including, in Congress, Carl Levin, Robert Menendez, and Dianne Feinstein – to “do something” in Syria, while the Republican hawks swirling around John McCain have been howling for a “no fly zone” and military aid to the rebels. Of course, the American people oppose us getting involved in the Syrian imbroglio, but they don’t count: the gaggle of foreign lobbyists and laptop bombardiers who rule Washington are, as usual, the only voices being heard.

Who will channel the populist wisdom of the war-weary and too-often-lied-to American people? While the warlords of Washington are merrily planning yet another war to benefit Israel based on lying “evidence” of WMD, where are all these supposed Republican “isolationists” we’ve been hearing so much about? Put up, or shut up, fellas.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), here.

Justin, you are a pathetic stooge. 9/11 was not a conspiracy, but everything else apparently is.
To make your evil points you would prefer every citizen of Syria dead. Just let them die.
You seem to love Iran for whatever reason.
This site I monitor like Fox News.
Pathetic.
Have a nice safe day in San Francisco while Assad continues his bombing of Syrian cities with Russian and Iranian weapons.
I can't express enough how YOU DISGUST ME..

This is a bleak picture getting worse every day. This gang won't stop until we are in WW3. It will involve China, Iran, Pakistan, the Gulf states, Russia, India, and many more as well as the USA. I feel like the people must have felt in 1940.

According to the news from RT, a UN independent report proves the fact that it was the rebels who used the out loaded report of chemical used against the civilians and not the Syrian army as western politicians had hoped for it to be.

Turkish sunny Muslim president" Ordegon" government calls president Assad the "Butcher" while continuing their support and training of Europeans and other terrorist sent to Turkey.., then that english two face Neo liberal fascism in England, David Cameron repeat its demand from EU to arm the rebels so is Germany and France, thinking that arming these "rebels" will one day pave the way for NATO to invade Syria.., and on Sunday Israel apartheid regime, in total cooperation and given green light by USA government intruding a sovereign nation airspace bombing a military facility where such action is defended by USA militarism regime repeating another of their lie blaming everything on a "iranian missile shipment" to Hezbollah in Lebanon.., All that is about NATO plan B wanting to invade Syria.., they all know that the Syrian war is lost.., that more they support these bandits, the sunny Muslims mercenaries sent from Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabis, the sallafi and the barbarians.., less they will get out of this proxy war which is against every nations in Middle East.

We said that from day one.., this is a lost war orchestrated by Hillary Clinton among others.., the origin of this war is from a plan for the world wars by non other then father of all USA zionism Paul Wolfowitz, by Richard Perl, by George w. Bush, by Madeleine Albright passed on to Hillary Clinton and Obama to continue.., Syria is going to be, either another USA Vietnam war or the Third World War will be the end of the world.

Look: vulture capitalism can destroy the world in just 5 minutes and the system is working on it.., yes the system is that stupid.

All wars orchestrated by EU and USA is about demolishing the unity of the people in middle east, is about having a puppet regime, a dictatorial regime, a Islamic dictatorial system against the will of the people, a vulture capitalism economic system which benefits the few and is out there for the few. As the Swedish foreign minister Karl Bildt, the double Israeli and CIA agent once said "if you want to change the world, you have to be in it".., these regimes are not about democracy nor they are after changing anything in democratic way, they are there to create the third elements of fascism, a Neo hitlerism and thus far they have done a good job killing their own people bytheway of austerity.

Perhaps with the 'new wars' we are fighting, our geniuses in DC the wordsmiths at least can concoct some new words to take in account the daily changing alliances between faction. Yesterday's enemies are today our homies. Words are too solid for our new agey kinetic military action. We need something that reflects the kinesis of our alliances.

"a proxy war prefiguring a much larger conflict, with the US, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and Al Qaeda (in the guise of the “Al Nusra Front”) versus the Syrian Ba’athists, Hezbollah, and – standing behind them – Iran."

Well, I don't see the Syrian Ba'athists holding out much longer. That just leaves Iran and Hezbollah, and with Hezbollah cut off from resupply. As large as Iran is it's still surrounded by the US military and would have a limited ability to protect itself.

Seems more like another turkey (no pun intended) shoot than a proper "war." Incidentally should Iran at some point get nuke weapons no one ever seems to mention that Jerusalem is holy ground for them as well and if for no better reason that that by itself nuking Israel seems about as likely for them as nuking Mecca itself. Israel on the other hand has no particular attachment to Shiraz or Esfahan… a simple enough point but one I've never heard in the MSM. A moment's thought makes an Iranian nuke threat to Israel silly.

The civil wars we've initiated in Iraq and Syria seem to be the bigger bloodbaths, already in progress.

FYI I was battling some idiots in the comments section of Yahoo (generally a cesspool of hawkishness and I seldom bother) below an article about Afghanistan. I mentioned something about how we kill civilians and children there and a few commenters scoffed at that and said I had no proof.

So I quoted a few news stories about our killing civilians and especially children, particularly the two infamous firewood incidents. Not URLs, just the headlines, bylines and a thesis sentence with the suggestion that the reader search for the stories. Not long posts, nothing against their posting policy.

Don't you know that my comments are now missing! Apparently you can post just about anything in Yahoo comments… except proof of American war atrocities that win arguments. People even curse and use racial slurs, Yahoo just edits those automatically by inserting cartoonish "&$^!@." I'd never before seen outright censoring of comments like this.

“U.N. Has Gathered Testimony Indicating That Syrian Rebels Have Used Sarin Gas, Says Investigator”
Israeli False Flag operation using the Rebels, like Col Lawerence Wilkerson hinted at earlier this week?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/05/syria-sa…

GENEVA, May 5 (Reuters) – U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that REBEL FORCES have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

While these attacks undoubtedly are blatantly illegal and criminal, I tend not to agree with Ali Rizk (in the RT interview) that they represent an attempt by the Israeli government to bring the US government into "Tel Aviv's war" against Syria.

Tel Aviv clearly got prior approval from Washington before launching these latest attacks on Syria, as was also the case with the Israeli state's late-January bombing of Syria.

Contrary to what "old-line," or traditional and anti-semitic fascists from the West like David Duke say (I'm contrasting him here with Western "neo-fascists" like Anders Breivik who spread hatred against Arabs and Muslims, possibly even in alliance with Tel Aviv,) the Israeli government does not control the US government. The Israeli government is about as independent from US imperialism as the unionists in Northern Ireland are from British imperialism or as the state of, say, Oklahoma is from the federal government in Washington, DC.

Israel is essentially a "garrison state" of American imperialism, armed to the teeth by the latter so as to serve as a counter-revolutionary bulwark against any kind of (secular) pan-Arab unity or, indeed, against a revolutionary socialist movement of the Arab working class. In this regard, it is in de facto alliance with US imperialism's other (in many cases extremely wealthy) regional junior partners such as the Saudi, Qatari and UAE ruling classes and, indeed, with the Syrian "rebels," whose military core is led by people who formally pledged their allegiance to Al Qaeda several weeks back.

The US has total air supremacy in the ME. It has AWACS and satellite surveillance. I find it difficult to believe that the US military didn't know an attack was taking place in real time. The only conclusion that can be made, if that is the case, is that the Israelis can evade US surveillance – and that is really worrying.

The part that I still don't see is how generating chaos throughout the Middle East helps Israel. Sure, it must please some Israelis to see Arabs kill each other, but out of chaos, what comes? It won't be peace and prosperity. Maybe it is just a case of hatred overwhelming good sense.

Syrian rebels have made use of the deadly nerve agent sarin in their war-torn country's conflict, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte has said. "According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas," del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, who was the senior aid to Colin Powell, says that Israel carried out false flag fabrication to attack Syria. Obama, the first black president is responsible for this attack because the dog never dare to attack without Obama’s green light. Is ICC going to charge Israel and US, Obama, with war crimes against humanity? If not, Americans must rise and overthrow the first black zionist puppet who has committed numerous war crimes against humanity, otherwise they are accomplices themselves .http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrian-rebels-used-sarin-gas-un-human-rights-investigator.aspx?PageID=238&NID=46302&NewsCatID=352

Israel prefers Failed States, since those are busy internally where people are fighting each other. "Divide and conquer", only that way the Britisjh empire was working, and the same way the US was able to install a friendly corrupt government in Iraqu with politicians that want to be rich in the first place and have a US passport in their safe deposit box. Without the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites the US would not have been able to rule Iraqu. The ruling empire only needs to support the weaker partner to preserve the equivalence of power what makes the country inable to defend itself against outside threats.

Eat s*hit and die, terrorist supporting son of a whore.
Get your rucksack and your rifle, go join the cause…or more likely be a coward warmonger, just like all the other brave armchair patriots who watch Fox News, who incidentally will never show the world's glee as missile after missile rains down on Israeli cities. Go Iran! Go Hezbollah! Long live Al-Assad! Go Eff Yourself Larry!

Please notice what Ban Ki-moon a petty, petty, petty servant has said about the Israeli attack on Syria from the United Nations. Ban Ki-moon has called ”on all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint.” No words of condemnation were uttered against Israel’s attack on Syria and Israel is never directly referenced.
It is Israel which has attacked Syria several times now. The aggressor and the victim cannot be equated as equivalents. In essence, Ban Ki-moon is whitewashing the Israeli attacks on Syria. The United Nations Secretariat expects Syria to do nothing and to accept the continuous aggression and assaults from Israel, which is capitalizing on the crisis inside Syria and threatening regional security, without making any condemnation of Israel’s actions in the United Nations.
Ban Ki-Moon is a war criminal complicit with Washington and Tel Avive who has been placed by the savages at the UN to cover up their crimes against Muslims. He like his dumb bosses is RACIST AND CRIMINAL. These criminals must be forced out and be EXECUTED NOW.

This is Russia's fault – pure and simple. They have arms that can level the playing field. They have a fleet in the mediterranean that can reduce Israel to rubble – and it sits there like a pile of scrap metal.
I've said before that the only 'international law' recognized by Israel is that they're allowed to do whatever US supplied arms make it possible for them to do and get away with. Did the world really need another demonstation to realize this?
So what's new? The carte blanche support after-the-fact by Obama? He's been doing the same all his administration.
The response by China admonishing the act while Netanyahu visits asking for an after-the-fact approval? It's ridiculous. Kill the criminal. He's right there.
Morsi's pathetic response? Denouncing it, expressing anger, and asking UN secuity council to do something about it. Hello – doesn't Egypt have an army and an air force? Good, because the UN doesn't.
Ban Ki-Moon's response, mentioned earlier I think was done more out of impotence than any intended malice. There's nothing he can do about it.
So Israel once again will get away with it. Expect more of the same.

If you look at the history of this or other terror organization they all are the creation of CIA and Israel helping hands in Afghanistan and Arab world to keep nations divided, to keep nation fighting each other while the western.., what is called.., civilization steal the nations wealth. Al-Queda was created by Bush family in 1990s and in relation to ussr military action in Afghanistan.

What is called western "civilization" doing, conducting, using Al-Queda and other terror organizations inhuman acts against any kind of democracy but theirs.., these terrorist groups are part of monarchism in Saudi Arabia, Swedish king few months ago apprised the Saudis king for their brutality and politics in the region.

Zionist support for Islamic terrorism – with the exception of the Middle East, pre-Libya – is actually old news. For example, Ellie Wiesel urged President Clinton to bomb Kosovo, thus presaging full support for Islamic terrorism in Kosovo vis-à-vis the bloodthirsty Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Moreover, prominent Zionists openly sympathize with the Chechnya terrorists vis-à-vis the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus, formerly the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya.

Go even a little further back. The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt back in 1924 with the insdispensable help of British Military Intelligence to counter the young nationalist officers(Gamal Abdel Nasser among them) that were trying to gain independence from British rule. Whahabite and Salafist Islamist have always been at the service of the West.
Have you ever wondered why these "jihadists" have never tried to liberate Islam's second holiest site, Jerusalem and the Dome of The Rock !

Justin says, "…..the American people oppose us getting involved in the Syrian imbroglio, but they don’t count: the gaggle of foreign lobbyists and laptop bombardiers who rule Washington are, as usual, the only voices being heard.

Who will channel the populist wisdom of the war-weary and too-often-lied-to American people? While the warlords of Washington are merrily planning yet another war to benefit Israel based on lying “evidence” of WMD,…."

Your argument is demonstrably fallacious! AIPAC makes and breaks American prostitutes…oops, I meant politicians. Even the great J. William Fulbright was removed by this insidious lobby. So if Israel was simply the tool of American Imperialism, there would have been no need for every congressman, senator and president of the US to go bow at the sacred altar of AIPAC.

Considering that the Boston Marathon bombing was allegedly done by Chechens, and that Chechens have been on the scene in Syria as foreign fighters for the rebels, and that Israel just made the first strike on Damascus (as in "the road to Damascus lies through Baghdad"), I think we can safely say that the word of Chechens for anything Israel put them up to in Syria has been discredited automatically. We now officially hate and fear Chechens, the muscle and dirty-deed doers in Syria. Their day is over. They have served their purpose. Now the cover for the bombing is complete, and the American public is dandy with it. Hate and kill Arabs? No problem. They are dastardly, treacherous people, even if they are actually Caucasians or Iranians. All Arabs. Do with them what thou wilt. Just don't give us too much to think about. It hurts our heads. We need to go out and run so our next marathon will be filled with our spirit, under the watchful eye of domestic drones. We too have served our purpose.

Good that Justin noted that Hamas and likely Hezbullah were both nurtured and supported clandestinely (at first) by Israel, as part of their long standing divide-and-conquer strategy. Of course that ends up backfiring, but no one is supposed to remember or bring that up.
Yes, the neocons are itching for another Mideastern war. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc. take your pick. Since their meme is "US as World Emperor" every problem there is supposed to be "our" problem to solve. Obama's problems are those of Caesar Augustus! *Sigh* Damn troublesome barbarians!

Interesting observation about your referencing comments being deleted, Chris. Almost seems like the 5th column is circling their wagons to make sure nothing springs from the secondary media into the first; like there was up.

Yes, The White Knight In Shining Armor is back in action to stop another "genocide" ("Genocide": When an official enemy of the U.S. is responsible for a single death). If U.S. military might isn't deployed, then all the Syrian people will disappear. After the Syrian Crusade is over, you should apply for the job of finding all the mass graves they couldn't find following the Kosovo Crusade.

I still don't think Obama wants to drop the anvil and do another Libya in Syria, the Benghazi Blowback being the main reason. I'm sure from Washington's point of view Syria has been weakened enough by the civil war that they don't need to turn it into another Lebanon and Libya. We'll see, but it looks like it's going to be hard to reign in Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council now that they've committed so much of their political capital to getting rid of Assad.

i have a friend who works for the state dept and she said that last night all hell broke loose after the report by the UN that the syrian "rebels" and not assad had used sarin. People from state had been busy all night and morning calling members of the media and UN to do damage control on this thing. I did not see any report of it on any mainstream channel. In fact, cnn and msnbc kept advancing the falshood that Assad had used WMD and they brought in a bunch a people to talk about assad and his weapons with no mention of the UN report.

AIPAC's campaign contributions are by no means whatsoever charity and they undoubtedly have some impact on US policy in the Middle East, but they are not decisive. AIPAC's dollars tend to go to the most fervently pro-Israel congressmen and women and to the opponents of the exceptionally few who are more critical of the Israeli state, but the net impact is fairly marginal; people running for higher office in the US as part of the right-wing parties of big business the Democrats and Republicans already understand the centrality of the Israeli state to US imperialism's plans to dominate the Middle East. Thus, AIPAC dollars may go to knock off the odd Cynthia McKinney here and there, but the near uniformity of policy in Washington reflects the virtually universal acceptance among the politicos of continued support to Israel as a linchpin of American imperialist strategy in that key, oil-rich region of the world.

If the actions of the Israeli Lobby really did significantly conflict with the interests of important sections of the US ruling class — say, for example, those of the energy transnationals — then we could expect to see those companies giving lots of money to the opponents of the most pro-Israel politicians and, to say, advocates of a viable Palestinian state not rendered unviable by the presence of huge settlements everywhere. However, you see very little of this.

The hallmark of US politics has been for the last 30+ years the fundamental consensus between Democrats and Republicans not only in favor of endless war overseas, but also in favor of the most right-wing "neoliberal" form of capitalism and police-statism to deal with the growing domestic opposition to this reactionary agenda.

Neither "the Jews" nor "rich Jews" nor even "rich Zionist Jews" control Washington, but the capitalist class as a whole, of whom wealthy Zionist Jews are a non-negligible, though not dominant part. The capitalists — organized overwhelmingly through the Democratic and Republican Parties — agree on all essentials, and their quarrels on key policy questions are both increasingly infrequent and based solely on tactics towards the realization of agreed-upon ends. AIPAC seeks to make US policy as pro-Israel as possible and probably has some impact on the margins, but if AIPAC did not exist, US policy would still be strongly pro-Israel, if only slightly less so, because of the value (at least currently) of Israel to US imperialism as a regional gendarme focused on preventing any kind of secular, pan-Arab nationalism or, heavens forbid, a socialist movement among the long-oppressed Arab workers and poor peasants.

You are absolutely right. Russia can not afford for Syria and eventually Iran to fall in the American-NATO-Israeli sphere of influence and if they don't realize this, then they are total imbeciles. Their northern flank, the Baltic States are already part of NATO. In the west that military alliance has moved to their borders and with an aggressive deployment of missile defense that threatens to nullify Russia's nuclear deterrence. If Syria and Iran go then their soft underbelly along with the immense wealth of the Caspian Basin will be endangered. Sooner or later, they will be the next target. Remember Hilary Clinton's remarkable comment that Siberia was too rich in natural resources to belong to one country !

Yet they sit on their ass and do nothing. I watch RT talk about world reaction to this latest attack on Damascus but they never bother to get Putin's reaction. Such passivity is incomprehensible. With leaders of that caliber, Hitler would have dined in the Kremlin.

People all seem to forget or downplay the fact that Oswald tried (and missed!) to kill a John Birch bigwig shortly before Kennedy. I'm convinced he acted alone, and on Cuba's behalf.

Ironically for me the idea that Oswald "could not have" shot JFK is a much more powerful tool for empire than the idea that he did. Much better to have people believe that only shadow government can defeat government than the idea that one working class kid with a little military training can take down a Golden Boy president of empire.

Among other things to this day most liberals/pwogs and even some left radicals (for reasons which baffle me) lionize the imperialist JFK when it turns out that Oswald was the one who fully understood that 'the first duty of the revolutionary is to make revolution.' And he darn near got away with it. The young guy had ten-ton testes and, let's face it, inadvertently helped pass the Civil Rights Act.

My assumption has been he was going to try to hit Mexico (having previously visited Mexico City) and throw himself at the Cuban Embassy. I wonder if he he'd made it that far what the Cuban reaction would have been…

I don't think you know how public opinion toward the US has changed in Europe! Only a few corrupt Politicians who would not be in power if they would not completely comply with NATO are openly supporting the US. And, yes, that was different before 9/11. The stupid and criminal wars of the US have destroyed almost all sympathy which the US became shortly after that event. I do not have ANY friend who us still thinking good of the US and NATO. And the best, I think some people have learned much more now what they can expect from that kind of "democracies" in which politicians are lying day by day.

My best guess is Netanyahu (right wing) Israel is out for Israel exclusively. My same guess is what is outlined in former Israeli agent Victor Ovstrovski in his book, By way of deception. The policy of a 'balance of weakness'. At the time (another right wing government), disguised agents would call in ship movements of Iran and Iran to each opponents enemies in order to keep one side from winning, the war going, and to bleed each side. Netanyahu gets more free money from the US congress cause of the threat of both Assad's chemical weapons and the possibility of rebels being a threat to Israel in the future. As Mr Raimondo has said before about the US congress, its always about Israel. Its more the reason to 1) Acknowledge AIPAC as agents of a foreign government and a threat to US sovereignty 2) Keep the United States out of Jordan and Syria

opps Iran and Iraq, the Iran Iraq war (The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Persian Gulf War, was an armed conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Baathist Republic of Iraq lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the 20th century's longest conventional war after the Second Sino-Japanese War.[8][9][ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_Wa… ))

Ron & Stanley-
Syria has long been a top arms client of Russia and were probably were sold the latest generation of air defenses and anti-aircraft missile batteries and more than likely have advisors and Spetsnaz forces right now in Syria training, supplying and assisting elite Syrian troops. Also Russia obliterated the Georgian military and have complained loudly about Western missile defense in Eastern Europe with signs that Obama may have caved since he began shifting focus of missile defense to the Pacific against North Korea instead. The Russian Navy conducted war games in the Mediterranean not long ago. Short of recklessly risking an all-out war with the West, what more do you expect them to do?

[…] etc Assad became president in 2000 WAY after these problems like Golan had been established.. more http://original.antiwar.com/justin/20&#8230; Think fighting Assad can be anti-Israel too just cause you want it to be? You’re a pawn […]

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].